Concepts and words
239 terms in plain language: the names of practices, tools, beings and ideas, from evil eye and grimoire to misdirection and animism, and the words that change from one place to the next.
Presented by ClearTrust Plain-language terms, free to read.
A
- Albularyo
- The Filipino folk healer, from the Spanish word for herb-doctor, who combines plants, prayers and sometimes spirit diagnosis.
- Amulet
- An object worn or kept to protect its holder, usually passive and made long before it is used.
- Amulet, talisman and charm
- Three overlapping names for objects believed to protect or help: an amulet guards, a talisman is made to give power, a charm is often spoken or worn.
- Animism
- The view that animals, plants, places and objects have spirit or personhood, and a word that has changed meaning more than once.
- Anito
- The ancestor and nature spirits of pre-colonial Philippine religion, and the carved figures that honoured them.
- Ankh
- The Egyptian sign for life, shaped like a cross with a loop, held by gods in tomb and temple art.
- Apotropaic magic
- Practices and objects meant to turn away harm, such as the evil eye, bad luck or hostile spirits.
- Apu
- The Quechua word for a mountain lord, a protector of the community, and its kin: the huaca, any place or thing holding sacred power.
- Ase
- The Yoruba word for the power to make things happen, carried in speech, rites and sacred objects, and found across the diaspora.
- Astragalomancy
- Divination with knucklebones, the ankle bones of sheep or goats, used as early dice.
- Athame
- The ritual knife of Wicca and ceremonial magic, used to direct and mark, and not to cut.
- Augury
- Divination from the flight and cries of birds, a state ritual in Rome and a custom in many other places.
- Ayin hara
- The Hebrew name for the evil eye, the harm that praise or envy is believed to bring, and the words said to ward it off.
B
- Babalawo
- The Yoruba priest of Ifa, whose name means father of secrets, trained for years to read and recite the odu.
- Baksy
- Central Asian word for a singer-healer: in Kazakh and Kyrgyz a shaman who plays the kobyz, in Uzbek an epic singer.
- Baraka
- The Arabic word for blessing, treated in North African and Sufi practice as a power that rests in saints, shrines and their objects.
- Barnum effect
- The tendency to accept vague, general descriptions as personal and accurate, as in horoscopes and personality tests.
- Bells
- Bells rung to drive off spirits, mark ritual space or call the gods, used in Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Shinto rite.
- Benandanti
- A sixteenth and seventeenth century group in Friuli, northern Italy, who said they fought witches in spirit to protect the harvest.
- Besom
- A broom of twigs, the household tool that became the witch's emblem of flight.
- Bhoot and pret
- Hindi words for the restless dead: the ghost left behind by an untimely death or unfinished funeral rites.
- Bhuta kola
- A night rite in coastal Karnataka and north Kerala in which a performer becomes a guardian spirit, a bhuta, and speaks for it.
- Bibliomancy
- Divination by opening a book at random and reading the passage that meets the eye.
- Bkhour
- The incense of Morocco and the Maghreb, burned to perfume a home and, by custom, to clear it of envy and unseen harm.
- Black cat
- A cat said to bring bad luck in the United States and parts of Europe and good luck in Britain and Japan.
- Bomoh
- The Malay folk healer and diviner, using prayers, herbs and spirit work, consulted alongside clinics and mosques.
- Bori
- The Hausa spirit-possession tradition of Niger and Nigeria, in which mediums host spirits called iskoki.
- Braucherei
- The Pennsylvania German tradition of folk healing and protection with prayers and charms, usually called powwowing in English.
- Brujería
- Spanish for witchcraft: in Latin American and US Latino communities it names harm done in secret, and the accusations it brings.
C
- Candle customs and colours
- The flame in rite: votive and memorial candles, and the colours that traditions assign to wishes.
- Candomblé
- The Afro-Brazilian religion of the orixás, centred on the terreiro, with houses called nations such as Ketu, Jeje and Angola.
- Cargo cult
- A label for Melanesian movements that expected a new order and goods, a term many scholars now avoid as condescending.
- Cartomancy
- Divination with cards, using ordinary playing cards, tarot or a smaller dedicated deck.
- Cauldron
- A great pot, from Celtic myth and Macbeth to the modern witch's symbol of rebirth.
- Changeling
- In European folklore, a being left in place of a stolen child, and a belief that led to real neglect and, at times, killing.
- Chilla
- A forty-day retreat of fasting and prayer in Sufi and Persian tradition, also borrowed by folk magical practice.
- Chinese astrology
- A system based on the twelve-animal zodiac, the five elements and the sixty-year cycle.
- Cleromancy
- Divination by lots: stones, sticks, beans or dice thrown or drawn so that chance gives the answer.
- Close-up magic
- Magic performed at arm's length, with cards, coins and everyday objects, for a few people at a time.
- Closed practice
- A tradition whose rites or knowledge are kept for members, initiates or a community, which outsiders are asked to respect.
- Cold reading
- A set of techniques by which a reader appears to know much about a stranger, by using their reactions and general statements.
- Confirmation bias
- The habit of noticing and remembering what fits what we already believe, and forgetting what does not.
- Conjure
- The older African American word for working magic, applied to the practitioner, the practice and the harm it could cause or cure.
- Conjuring
- The art of performing apparent impossibilities for entertainment, from the cups and balls to the modern stage.
- Correspondences
- The idea that planets, metals, colours, plants, days and body parts are linked in matching sets, used to plan rites.
- Cowrie-shell reading
- Divination by throwing cowrie shells, practised in West Africa and in Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Cuban religions.
- Cultural appropriation
- The taking of another culture's sacred or cultural forms, such as smudging, dreamcatchers or shamanic workshops, without consent or credit.
- Cunning folk
- Village practitioners in Britain and Europe who healed, found lost things and unpicked curses, usually for a fee.
- Curandero
- The folk healer of Latin America and Mexican America, who treats with prayer, herbs and cleansing alongside Catholic faith.
D
- Despacho
- An Andean offering bundle, prepared by a specialist and given to the earth and the mountain spirits in thanks and request.
- Diaspora religion
- A faith carried by migrants or enslaved people to new lands, where it changes in contact with other traditions.
- Divination
- The attempt to learn what is hidden or to come by reading signs, drawing lots or consulting spirits.
- Dreamcatcher
- A hoop with a woven web that the Ojibwe made for children; now mass-produced, which many Native people dislike.
- Dukun
- The Javanese and Indonesian traditional healer and spiritual adviser, who may also be accused of sending harm.
- Dybbuk
- In Jewish folk belief, the spirit of a dead person that clings to a living one and speaks through them.
E
- Egungun
- The Yoruba masquerade of the ancestors, in which a figure in layered cloth is received as a returning forebear.
- Ema
- A small wooden plaque at Japanese shrines on which visitors write a wish or thanks.
- Enchantment
- The act of placing a charm or spell on a person or thing, and in some scholars' writing the lost feeling of a world full of meaning.
- Endless knot
- An interlaced knot with no start or end, one of the eight auspicious signs of Buddhism.
- Escapology
- The stage art of freeing oneself from restraints, made famous by Harry Houdini.
- Esotericism
- A scholarly field and a word for teachings meant for a circle of initiates, including hermetic, Kabbalistic and astrological streams.
- Extispicy
- Divination from the organs of a sacrificed animal, practised by specialist priests in ancient Mesopotamia.
- Eye of Horus
- The Egyptian eye of health and wholeness, from the story of Horus losing and regaining his eye.
F
- Fairy faith
- The belief in an otherworld people living beside humans, held in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany and treated with courtesy and caution.
- Fal-e Hafez
- Persian divination in which a person asks a question and opens the poems of Hafez at random.
- Fate and fortune
- Ideas of how far life is set in advance, and how far a person can change it, shaping what people ask of magic.
- Feng shui
- The Chinese practice of siting graves, houses and cities by the flow of qi, the breath thought to run through land and buildings.
- Fetish
- A word from Portuguese traders for West African objects, later turned into a colonial label for African religion as a whole.
- Folk religion
- The religion as people live it day to day, including charms, saints, pilgrimages and household rites, alongside official teaching.
- Folklore
- The traditional stories, sayings, customs and beliefs of a group, passed on by word of mouth and example.
- Four-leaf clover
- A rare clover with four leaflets, kept as a sign of luck since at least the seventeenth century.
- Fu
- A Taoist talisman: a written charm in the cursive script of priests, pasted, worn or burned in a ritual.
G
- Galdr
- The Old Norse word for a sung or chanted charm, and later the name of Icelandic magical books.
- Galdrastafir
- Icelandic magical staves, drawn in manuscripts of the 1600s onward, meant for protection, luck and other aims.
- Geomancy
- Divination with sixteen figures of dots or lines, from the Arabic science of sand, widely used in Europe and Africa.
- Glamour
- An old Scots word for an illusion cast over the eyes, later a word for allure; fairies and witches were said to cast it.
- Gnawa
- A Moroccan spiritual brotherhood, descended from enslaved Sub-Saharan Africans, whose all-night lila ritual is a rite of healing and trance.
- Golem
- A figure of clay brought to life by a rabbi in Jewish legend, best known from the story of Prague.
- Gris-gris
- A small charm bag or packet, from West Africa and New Orleans, for protection or luck.
H
- Hamsa
- A hand-shaped charm of North Africa and the Middle East, called the hand of Fatima or of Miriam.
- Haruspicy
- Reading omens in the livers of sacrificed animals, a priestly craft of the Etruscans and Romans.
- Heka
- The Egyptian word for the creative power invoked in spells and medicine, and the name of the god who personified it.
- Hermeticism
- A tradition of writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, a Greek name for a figure joined to the Egyptian god Thoth.
- Hexafoil and hex signs
- A six-petalled compass design found across Europe, and the painted star discs of Pennsylvania barns.
- Hoodoo
- African American folk magic of the American South, using roots, objects and Psalms for luck, protection and justice.
- Horseshoe
- An iron shoe nailed above a door or on a ship to bring luck and keep away evil.
- Houngan and mambo
- The priest and priestess of Haitian Vodou, who run a temple, initiate others and mediate with the lwa.
I
- I Ching
- A Chinese book of 64 six-line figures, used for divination and read as philosophy for about three thousand years.
- Ifa
- The Yoruba system of divination and sacred verse, led by babalawo, with 256 signs called odu.
- Imitative magic
- Rites that act out a wished-for result, such as rain, a good hunt or a safe birth, in the belief that the acting helps bring it about.
- Incantation
- Spoken or chanted words used in a rite, in the belief that sound and exact wording carry power.
- Incense
- Fragrant smoke offered to gods and used to mark a space, from Egyptian kyphi to the thurible and the joss stick.
- Indian rope trick
- A tale of a rope that rises into the sky and a boy who climbs it, famous in the West and never reliably witnessed.
- Inyanga
- The Zulu herbalist who prepares remedies and charms from plants and animal products, and learns by apprenticeship.
- Iron and salt
- Two common wards: iron against fairies and spirits, salt against ill luck and harm.
J
- Jadu-tona
- North Indian words for sorcery and small charms: jadu is magic, tona a minor ritual act, often against a rival or a bad stare.
- Jinn
- In Islamic and wider Middle Eastern belief, unseen beings made of smokeless fire who share the world with humans.
- Juju
- West African English for charms and the unseen power behind them, and in Edo State the oath sworn to traffickers.
- Jyotish
- Indian astrology, a system of birth charts and planetary periods consulted before marriages, journeys and new ventures.
K
- Kabbalah
- The Jewish esoteric tradition, including its practical branch of divine names and amulets, now widely commercialised.
- Kahuna
- The Hawaiian word for an expert or priest, whose English afterlife in surf slang and New Age Huna has little to do with Hawaiian practice.
- Kam
- The Turkic word for shaman, used among the Altai, Tuvan and Khakas peoples of southern Siberia.
- Kami
- The sacred powers of Shinto: gods, ancestral spirits and the presence found in mountains, trees and shrines.
- Karakia
- A Maori chant or prayer recited to open and close gatherings, to begin work and to ask protection.
- Kastom
- The Pidgin word for custom in Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea: the inherited ways of a place, including its ritual knowledge.
- Kau cim
- Chinese temple divination in which a worshipper shakes numbered sticks from a cylinder and reads the matching slip.
- Kitsune and tanuki
- Japanese folk belief in shape-shifting foxes and raccoon dogs, and the history of people said to be possessed by them.
L
- Law of contagion
- The belief that things once in contact stay linked, so that hair, nails or a worn garment can stand in for a person.
- Law of similarity
- The belief that like produces like, so that acting on an image or a likeness is thought to affect the real thing.
- Levitation
- The illusion of a body floating in the air, a stage classic and a long-reported feat of saints and yogis.
- Liminality
- The in-between condition during a rite of passage, when a person is neither what they were nor yet what they will be.
- Luck
- The belief that good or bad outcomes come from something other than skill, which can be attracted, kept or turned away.
- Lwa
- The spirits of Haitian Vodou, who are served, fed and asked for help, and who speak by possessing devotees.
M
- Machi
- The Mapuche healer and ritual leader of Chile and Argentina, most often a woman, who works with a drum and a ritual ladder.
- Magic
- A word for practices meant to bring about results by means outside ordinary cause and effect, and a word whose meaning is still argued over.
- Mal de ojo
- The Spanish and Latin American evil eye, said to harm babies and others who are admired without a touch.
- Malocchio
- The Italian evil eye: harm believed to follow envious looks, countered by horn charms and a household rite known mostly to older women.
- Mambabarang
- In Philippine folk belief, a sorcerer said to send illness through insects, one of several feared figures of harm.
- Mami Wata
- The water spirit of West and Central Africa and its diaspora, usually shown as a woman with a snake, said to give wealth and take it away.
- Mana
- A Polynesian and Melanesian idea of spiritual power or efficacy that can reside in people, places and things.
- Mandrake
- A poisonous root of the nightshade family whose human shape fed legends of a scream and a magical power.
- Mano cornuta and corna
- A hand sign with index and little finger raised, used in Italy to ward off the evil eye and elsewhere as an insult.
- Mantra
- A sacred sound or phrase from the Sanskrit traditions, repeated in worship, protection and meditation.
- Medicine man
- An outsider's word for many different Native American ritual and healing roles, each of which has its own name in its own language.
- Mediumship
- The practice of acting as a channel between the living and the dead or other spirits, central to Spiritualism.
- Mentalism
- A branch of stage magic that presents apparent mind reading, prediction and influence, as entertainment.
- Microcosm and macrocosm
- The idea that the human being mirrors the universe, so that what holds for one holds for the other.
- Misdirection
- The managing of an audience's attention, the central principle of stage magic.
- Mojo bag
- A small cloth bag of personal items and substances, carried in hoodoo to attract luck, love or protection.
- Moral panic
- A wave of public fear that a group or practice threatens society, often out of proportion to the evidence.
- Mudang
- The Korean shaman, usually a woman, who holds a gut: a rite of song, dance and spirit possession for the living and the dead.
- Muti
- A southern African word for traditional medicine of plant, animal and mineral materials, and, in a darker sense, the motive behind muti killings.
N
- Nat
- The Burmese spirit lords honoured beside Buddhism, who speak through mediums at festivals such as Taungbyone.
- Nazar and drishti
- South Asian words for the evil eye: the harm believed to follow envious or admiring looks, and the customs that turn it aside.
- Nazar and evil-eye beads
- The blue glass eye used across the Mediterranean and beyond against the evil eye.
- Necromancy
- Seeking knowledge from the dead; in the Middle Ages the word also came to mean demonic magic in general.
- Neopaganism and Wicca
- Modern religions drawing on pre-Christian imagery; Wicca was publicised by Gerald Gardner in England in the 1950s.
- Neoplatonism
- A philosophy of the third century onward, founded on Plotinus, that shaped later magic, theology and mysticism.
- New Age
- A loose spiritual movement from the 1970s on, mixing esoteric ideas, Eastern practices and self-development, and now a large industry.
- Nganga
- The Kongo ritual specialist who makes minkisi and heals; the same word in Bantu languages names the healer and the diviner.
- Nkisi
- A Kongo power figure or container that holds a spirit, made and activated by a ritual specialist, the nganga.
- Noaidi
- The Sámi ritual specialist of northern Scandinavia, who used a drum to journey and foresee, and whose tradition missionaries suppressed.
- Numerology
- The belief that numbers, and numbers made from letters, carry hidden meaning about people and events.
O
- Obeah
- A Caribbean word for African-derived harm and healing, long criminalised by colonial law and still contested.
- Occult
- From Latin for hidden: the study and practice of knowledge held to be concealed from ordinary view.
- Ofuda
- A paper or wooden talisman from a Japanese shrine or temple, kept in the home as a protective focus.
- Ogham
- An early medieval Irish alphabet of strokes along an edge, now also used as a divination set.
- Ojha
- A village healer and ritual specialist in eastern India, consulted for snakebite, illness and spirit trouble.
- Omamori
- A small brocade amulet sold at Japanese shrines and temples for health, safety, exams or love.
- Omen
- An event taken as a sign of what is to come, whether good or bad, from an eclipse to a spilled drink.
- Omens
- Events taken as signs of good or bad fortune to come: a bird, a sneeze, a dream, a comet.
- Omikuji
- Paper fortunes sold at Japanese shrines and temples, ranging from great blessing to great curse.
- Oneiromancy
- Divination from dreams, which many cultures have treated as messages from gods, ancestors or the self.
- Onmyodo
- Japan's Way of Yin and Yang: court divination and ritual from the Heian era, and the home of the shikigami legends.
- Opele and Ifa divination
- The divining chain of the Yoruba Ifa tradition, which a babalawo casts to find one of 256 odu.
- Orenda
- A Haudenosaunee word, recorded in Wyandot and Iroquoian languages, for a spiritual power present in people and nature.
- Orisha
- The deities of Yoruba religion, honoured in Nigeria and Benin and, as orixa and oricha, in Brazil and Cuba.
- Ornithomancy
- Divination from the flight, calls and behaviour of birds, known to the Romans as taking the auspices.
- Ouija and the planchette
- A board of letters and a pointer, marketed in 1890 as a parlour game, used to ask questions of spirits.
- Ouroboros
- A serpent or dragon eating its own tail, an emblem of cycles, return and wholeness.
P
- Palmistry
- Reading character and fortune from the lines and shape of the hand.
- Pawang
- Malay and Indonesian title for an expert in the unseen who guides a task: the rain handler, the fishing or mining guide, the animal tamer.
- Pendulum and dowsing
- Using a swinging weight or a forked rod to find water, objects or answers.
- Pentagram and pentacle
- The five-pointed star, once a sign of health and Christ's wounds, now a symbol of Wicca and, inverted, of Satanism.
- Pepper's ghost
- A Victorian theatre illusion that makes a ghostly figure appear on stage, still used in theatres and theme parks.
- Performative utterance
- J. L. Austin's name for words that carry out an act when said, such as a vow or a naming, a model often applied to spells.
- Phi
- The Thai and Lao word for spirit: ghosts, guardians of land and house, and the powers that are fed at a spirit house.
- Placebo and ritual healing
- How anthropologists and clinicians study the effect of ritual, expectation and care on how people feel when they are ill.
- Pledge, turn, prestige
- The three-part structure of a classic illusion: show the ordinary, make it change, bring it back.
- Poppet and the voodoo doll
- A figure made to stand for a person; the pin-stuck voodoo doll of film is mostly a European and Hollywood idea.
- Powwow
- The English name for Pennsylvania German folk healing, borrowed from a Native American word and unrelated to the Native gatherings known as pow wows.
- Puja
- Hindu worship with offerings, the frame in which many household blessings, protections and cleansings take place.
- Puripuri
- A Tok Pisin word for magic and charms in Papua New Guinea, covering garden, love and fishing magic as well as sorcery.
R
- Rabbit's foot
- The foot of a rabbit or hare carried for luck, found in African American folk magic and on keyrings.
- Red string
- A red cord tied on the wrist or hung as a charm, with different meanings in Jewish, Hindu and Chinese custom.
- Religion, magic and science
- A long scholarly debate about whether magic, religion and science are separate kinds of thought or points on one line.
- Rite of passage
- A ritual that marks a change of status, such as birth, coming of age, marriage or death, in three stages.
- Ritual
- A set of actions, words and objects performed in a fixed or meaningful way, whose power is found in the doing.
- Rune casting
- Divination by drawing or throwing marked stones or tiles carved with runes, the old Germanic letters.
- Ruqyah
- The recitation of Quranic verses and prayers over a person, believed to protect them or relieve harm from sihr, jinn or envy.
S
- Sak yant
- A sacred tattoo of Thailand and Cambodia, drawn with a long needle by a monk or ajarn, said to protect its wearer.
- Sangoma
- The Zulu and Xhosa diviner-healer, called by ancestors to the work and consulted through divination and spirit communication.
- Sanguma
- A Papua New Guinean word for sorcery believed to kill, and a name at the centre of accusation violence.
- Santería
- The Cuban religion of Yoruba orisha and Catholic saints, called Regla de Ocha or Lucumí by many of its priests.
- Sator square
- A five-line Latin word square that reads the same in four directions, used as a protective charm.
- Sawing a woman in half
- The best-known stage illusion of the twentieth century, first shown in London in 1921.
- Scarab
- The dung-beetle amulet of ancient Egypt, a sign of new life and the rising sun.
- Scepticism
- The practice of asking for evidence before accepting a claim, applied to magic, psychic powers and alternative healing.
- Scrying
- Gazing into a polished surface, such as a crystal, a mirror or a bowl of water, in order to see visions.
- Seidr
- Norse sorcery of fate and vision, linked to Freyja, practised in the sagas by women called volur and seen as shameful for men.
- Shamanism
- A term for religious specialists who enter altered states to meet spirits on behalf of a community, from a Siberian Tungusic word.
- Siddhi
- In Indian traditions, a power said to come with spiritual practice, such as lightness or the ability to read minds.
- Sigil
- A drawn sign or symbol made to stand for a spirit, an intention or a power, from the Latin sigillum, a small seal.
- Sihr
- The Arabic word for magic, which Islamic law generally treats as sorcery and forbids.
- Sleight of hand
- Skilled hand movement that makes a small object seem to appear, vanish or change.
- Smudging and sage
- A Native American cleansing ceremony with burning herbs, now widely copied, which many Indigenous people ask outsiders to respect.
- Sorcery and witchcraft
- A distinction made by Evans-Pritchard: witchcraft as an innate power, sorcery as harm done by learned technique.
- Spell
- A set of words, often with actions or objects, used to bring about a hoped-for effect; in older English a spell was simply a story.
- Strega
- The Italian and German words for witch, strega and Hexe, with the ambiguous village figure behind them.
- Superstition
- A word for beliefs and habits judged irrational by the speaker, and one that scholars use with care because it carries a verdict.
- Susto
- A Latin American folk illness of fright, in which a shock is believed to unsettle the soul, treated by healers who call it back.
- Swastika
- An ancient sacred sign of good fortune in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, and since 1920 the emblem of the Nazi party.
- Sympathetic magic
- Frazer's term for magic that rests on a link between things, either because they resemble each other or because they were once in contact.
- Syncretism
- The merging of elements from different religions, as in Santería, Candomblé and Vodou, which join West African and Catholic worlds.
T
- Taboo
- A prohibition on touching, saying, eating or doing something, backed by the belief that crossing the line brings harm.
- Talisman
- A made object charged for a specific purpose, often at a chosen hour with a name or seal.
- Tantra
- A family of Hindu and Buddhist ritual traditions, widely misread in the West as sexual technique or as black magic.
- Tapu
- A Polynesian term for what is set apart as sacred or restricted, the source of the English word taboo.
- Tarot
- A deck of 78 cards that began as a card game in fifteenth-century Italy and became a tool of divination later.
- Tasseography
- Divination from the shapes left by tea leaves or coffee grounds in a cup.
- Taweez
- A written Muslim amulet, usually Quranic verses or sacred names on paper, worn in a case or folded in a pouch.
- Tengri
- The sky god of Turkic and Mongol peoples, and the name of a modern movement to revive pre-Islamic steppe religion.
- The Great Work
- The central aim of alchemy and later ceremonial magic: a transformation of matter, and in many writers, of the self.
- The Magic Circle and the magician's code
- Societies of magicians whose members promise not to reveal methods to the public.
- The magician's code
- The convention among stage magicians not to reveal how tricks are done, which keeps the art alive.
- The numinous
- Rudolf Otto's word for the feeling of the sacred as something wholly other, both awe-inspiring and fascinating.
- The occult revival
- A surge of interest in magic, Spiritualism and esotericism in the nineteenth century, with another wave in the 1960s and 1970s.
- The Satanic panic
- A fear in the 1980s and early 1990s, mainly in the United States, that secret Satanic cults were abusing children.
- Theurgy, thaumaturgy and goetia
- Three old terms sorting magic by aim: theurgy seeks union with the divine, thaumaturgy works wonders, goetia deals with spirits.
- Tohunga
- The Maori expert, a priest, healer or master of a craft, whose work was suppressed by New Zealand law from 1907 to 1962.
- Trance and possession
- States in which a person is believed to be entered, or carried away, by a spirit, found in religions across the world.
- Tree of Life
- A sacred tree in many cultures, and in Kabbalah a diagram of ten spheres by which creation is described.
- Triple moon
- A sign of waxing, full and waning moon, taken in Wicca as the triple goddess of maiden, mother and crone.
V
- Vedic astrology
- India's system of astrology, which uses the stars' actual positions and 27 lunar mansions called nakshatras.
- Vodou
- The religion of Haiti, built on West African and Catholic elements, centred on service to the lwa. Not the doll-and-curse cliche of film.
- Volva
- The Norse seeress, a staff-bearing woman who foretells and shapes fate, from the poem Voluspa to the saga of Erik the Red.
W
- Wakan
- A Lakota word for what is sacred, mysterious or powerful, used in names for spiritual leaders and the sacred itself.
- Wand
- A rod used to direct power in myth, ritual and stage magic.
- Western astrology
- The tradition of reading the sky at a person's birth, with twelve zodiac signs, planets and houses.
- White and black magic
- A popular split between helpful and harmful magic, one that scholars treat with caution because it depends on who is judging.
- Witch bottle
- A sealed jar of pins, hair and other items, hidden in a house in England and America from the 1600s.
- Witch trials
- The legal prosecutions for witchcraft in Europe and its colonies, mainly from about 1450 to 1750.
- Witch-hunt
- A campaign to find and punish people accused of witchcraft, and by extension any hunt for scapegoats.
- Witch's ladder
- A cord with knots and feathers, reported in folklore and now used in modern witchcraft.
- Witchcraft accusations today
- Accusations of witchcraft that still lead to violence and killing, in parts of Africa, South Asia, Papua New Guinea and elsewhere.
- Wortcunning
- The Old English knowledge of plants, used in healing and charm, as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon leechbooks.
Y
- Yantra
- A geometric diagram, drawn or engraved, used in Hindu and Buddhist worship as a seat for a deity or a focus for a rite.